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Remember big dog little dog, where I walked my sister-in-law’s 9 month old Jack Russell after she had an operation? Well, the little mutt is back, and he’s here all week, folks!

Now it takes a lot for something to make Max look calm and sensible, but watching Mac race round and round, in and out, jump up on your knee and then jump down again as soon as there’s a noise elsewhere in the house is making the older fella look incredibly dignified and restrained. I swear he rolled his eyes at me this morning as the wee one continued his hyper chasing about. I’m having to type this one handed as Mac likes to sit on my knee while I’m ‘puting.

He’s a smart kid: this morning as Rog and I had coffee in the study, he grabbed Rog’s slipper off his foot and ran away with it. When R and I had finished our sentence, I jokingly looked at cute little one-ear-up, one-ear-down pup who’d returned empty pawed, and commanded “Go fetch Uncle Roger’s slipper!”. To our astonishment and amusement he dashed off, and returned with the slipper in his mouth! He’s also adopted Mittens’ old basket, and there’s an occasional 10 seconds where the pair of them are lying content in their baskets.

Mac and Max in their beds

Naturally there’s a bit of competition for attention, and over toys: squeaky ducks and ragged tuggers that have lain ignored in Max’s basket for months are suddenly of immense value to him, simply because little Mac wants to play with them. And the different temperaments of the breed are fascinating to observe – Mac is a chasing terrier, who sticks his head through the railings where the local lads are playing footie, longing to join in (the boys took pity on him and gave him one of their old and disheveled balls, which Mac ran home with in his mouth, pleased as punch.)

I’m working on getting him to sit and stay, and he seems to be a fast learner.

Funnily enough that didn’t seem to be a problem! A lot of the time I was calling them both anyway, or I was very obviously addressing one or t’other. But we did joke that there should be a rule prohibiting family members from giving their pets similar names.